Egypt (Egyptian: Km.t, Coptic: Kimi, Arabic: Mi?r; Egyptian Arabic:
Má?r), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country in North
Africa that includes the Sinai Peninsula, a land bridge to Asia.
Covering an area of about 1,001,450 square kilometers (386,560 square
miles), Egypt borders Libya to the west, Sudan to the south, and Israel
and the Gaza Strip to the northeast; on the north and the east are the
Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, respectively.

Egypt is the fifteenth most populous country in the world. The vast
majority of its 78.8 million population (2006) live near the banks of
the Nile River (about 40,000 km² or 15,450 sq miles) where the only
arable agricultural land is found. Large areas of land form part of the
Sahara Desert and are sparsely inhabited. Around half of Egypt's
residents live in urban areas, with the majority spread across the
densely populated centres of greater Cairo (the largest city in Africa
and the Middle East), Alexandria and other major towns in the Nile
Delta.

Egypt is famous for its ancient civilization and some of the world's
most ancient and important monuments, including the Giza Pyramids and
the Great Sphinx of Giza; the southern city of Luxor contains a
particularly large number of ancient artifacts such as the Karnak Temple
and the Valley of the Kings. Today, Egypt is widely regarded as the main
political and cultural centre of the Middle East.

Etymology

One of the ancient Egyptian names of the country, km.t, or "black land,"
is derived from the fertile black soils deposited by the Nile floods,
distinct from the 'red land' (dSr.t) of the desert. The name is realized
as kimi and kim? in the Coptic stage of the Egyptian language, and
appeared in early Greek as Kymeía.
Mi?r, the Arabic and official name for modern Egypt (Egyptian Arabic:
Ma?r), is of Semitic origin directly cognate with the Hebrew
(Mitzráyim), meaning "the two straits" (a reference to the dynastic
separation of upper and lower Egypt), and possibly means "a country" or
"a state".[1] Mi?r in Arabic also means "a country" or "a state".
The English name "Egypt" came via the Latin word Aegyptus derived from
the ancient Greek word (Aigyptos). According to Strabo, (Aigyptos), in
ancient Greek meant "below the Aegean" (A??a??? ?pt???, "Aegaeou
uptios"), and was formed by the combination of the two words. It has
also been suggested that the word is a corruption of the ancient
Egyptian phrase ?wt-k3-pt? meaning "home of the Ka (Soul) of Ptah", the
name of a temple of the god Ptah at Memphis.[2]

History

The Nile Valley was site of continuous human habitation since at least
the Paleolithic. Traces of these early peoples appear in the form of
artifacts and rock carvings along the terraces of the Nile and in the
desert oases. In the 10th millennium BC, a grain-grinding culture using
the earliest type of sickle blades had been replaced by another culture
of hunter-gatherers and fishers using stone tools. Climate changes
and/or overgrazing around 8000 BC began to desiccate the pastoral lands
of Egypt, eventually forming the Sahara. Early tribal peoples migrated
to the Nile River where they developed a settled agricultural economy
and more centralized society.[3]

By about 6000 BC, organized agriculture and large building construction
had appeared in the Nile Valley. During the Neolithic, several
predynastic cultures developed independently in Upper and Lower Egypt.
The Badarian culture and the successor Naqada series are generally
regarded as precursors to Dynastic Egyptian civilization. The earliest
known Lower Egyptian site, Merimda, predates the Badarian by about 700
years. Contemporaneous Lower Egyptian communities coexisted with their
southern counterparts for more than two thousand years, remaining
somewhat culturally separate, but maintaining frequent contact through
trade. The earliest known evidence of Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions
appear during the predynastic period on Naqada III pottery vessels,
dated to about 3200 BC.[4]

A unified kingdom was founded circa 3150 BC by King Menes, giving rise
to a series of dynasties that ruled Egypt for the next three millennia.
Egyptians subsequently referred to their unified country as tAwy,
meaning 'Two Lands'; and later km.t (Coptic: kimi), the 'Black Land', a
reference to the fertile black soil deposited by the Nile river.
Egyptian culture flourished during this long period and remained
distinctively Egyptian in its religion, arts, language and customs. The
first two ruling dynasties of a unified Egypt set the stage for the Old
Kingdom period, c. 2700-2200 BC., famous for its many pyramids, most
notably the 3rd Dynasty pyramid of Djoser and the 4th Dynasty Giza
Pyramids.

The Great Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza, built during the Old Kingdom,
are modern national icons that also lie at the heart of Egypt's thriving
tourism industry.
The First Intermediate Period ushered in a time of political upheaval
for about 150 years. Stronger Nile floods and stabilization of
government, however, brought back renewed prosperity for the country in
the Middle Kingdom c. 2040 BC, reaching a peak during the reign of
Pharaoh Amenemhat III. A second period of disunity heralded the arrival
of the first alien ruling dynasty in Egypt, that of the Semitic Hyksos.
The Hyksos invaders took over much of Lower Egypt around 1650 BC, and
founded a new capital at Avaris. They were eventually driven out by an
Upper Egyptian force led by Ahmose I, who founded the Eighteenth Dynasty
and relocated the capital from Memphis to Thebes.

The New Kingdom (c. 1550 - 1070 BC) began with the 18th dynasty, marking
the rise of Egypt as an international power that expanded during its
greatest extension to an empire as far south as Jebel Barkal in Nubia,
and included parts of the Levant in the east. This period is known for
some of the most well-known Pharaohs, including Hatshepsut, Thutmose
III, Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II. The
first known self-conscious expression of monotheism came during this
period in the form of the cult of Atenism. Frequent contacts with other
nations brought in new ideas in the New Kingdom.

The Hanging Church is Cairo's most famous Coptic church first built in
the AD 3rd or 4th century.
The Thirtieth Dynasty was the last native ruling dynasty during the
Pharaonic epoch. It fell to the Persians in 343 BC after the last native
pharaoh, King Nectanebo II, was defeated in battle. Later, Egypt fell to
the Greeks and Romans, beginning over two thousand years of foreign
rule. Before Egypt became part of the Byzantine realm, Christianity had
been brought by Saint Mark the Evangelist in the AD first century.
Diocletian's reign marks the transition from the Roman to the Byzantine
era in Egypt, when a great number of Egyptian Christians were
persecuted. The New Testament was by then translated into Egyptian, and
after the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, a distinct Egyptian Coptic
Church was firmly established.

The Byzantines were able to regain control of the country after a brief
Persian invasion early in the seventh century, until in AD 639, Egypt
was invaded by the Muslim Arabs. The form of Islam the Arabs brought to
Egypt was Sunni, though early in this period Egyptians began to blend
their new faith with indigenous beliefs and practices that had survived
through Coptic Christianity, giving rise to various Sufi orders that
have flourished to this day.[5] Muslim rulers nominated by the Islamic
Caliphate remained in control of Egypt for the next six centuries,
including a period for which it was the seat of the Caliphate under the
Fatimids. With the end of the Ayyubid dynasty, a Turco-Circassian
military caste, the Mamluks, took control about AD 1250 and continued to
govern even after the conquest of Egypt by the Ottoman Turks in 1517.

The brief French Invasion of Egypt in 1801 had a great social impact on
the country and its culture, as native Egyptians were introduced to the
principals of the French Revolution and were invited to head their own
government.[6] A series of civil wars took place between the Ottoman
Turks, the Mamluks, and Albanian mercenaries following the evacuation of
French troops, resulting in the Albanian Muhammad Ali taking control of
Egypt where he was appointed as the Ottoman viceroy in 1805. He led a
modernization campaign of public works, including irrigation projects,
agricultural reforms and increased industrialization, which were then
taken up and further expanded by his grandson and successor Isma'il
Pasha.

Following the completion of the Suez Canal by Ismail in 1869, Egypt
became an important world transportation hub. In 1866, the Assembly of
Delegates was founded to serve as an advisory body for the government.
Its members were elected from across Egypt and eventually they came to
have an important influence on governmental affairs.[7] The country also
fell heavily into debt to European powers. Ostensibly to protect its
investments, the United Kingdom seized control of Egypt's government in
1882, but nominal allegiance to the Ottoman Empire continued until 1914
when as a result of the declaration of war with the Ottoman Empire,
Britain declared a protectorate over Egypt and deposed the khedive,
replacing him with his uncle who was appointed Sultan of Egypt.

Between 1882 and 1906, a local nationalist movement for independence was
taking shape. The Dinshaway Incident prompted Egyptian opposition to
take a stronger stand against British occupation and the first political
parties were founded. After the first World War, Saad Zaghlul and the
Wafd Party led the Egyptian nationalist movement after gaining a
majority at the local Legislative Assembly. When the British exiled
Zaghlul and his associates to Malta on March 8, 1919, Egypt witnessed
its first modern revolution. Constant revolting by the Egyptian people
throughout the country led Great Britain to issue a unilateral
declaration of Egypt's independence on February 22, 1922.

The new Egyptian government drafted and implemented a new constitution
in 1923 based on a parliamentary representative system. Saad Zaghlul was
popularly-elected as Prime Minister of Egypt in 1924, and in 1936 the
Anglo-Egyptian Treaty was concluded. However, continued instability in
the government due to remaining British control and increasing
involvement by the King in politics led to the eventual toppling of the
monarchy and the dissolution of the parliament through a coup d'état by
a group of army officers in 1952. They forced King Farouk I to abdicate
in support of his son King Ahmed Fouad II.

The Egyptian Republic was declared on 18 June 1953 with General Muhammad
Naguib as the first President of the Republic. Naguib was forced to
resign in 1954 by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the real architect of the 1952
movement, and was later put under house arrest. Nasser assumed power as
President and declared the full independence of Egypt from the United
Kingdom on June 18, 1956. He also nationalized the Suez Canal on July
26, 1956 leading to the 1956 Suez Crisis. Three years after the 1967 Six
Day War, in which Egypt lost the Sinai to Israel, Nasser died and was
succeeded by Anwar Sadat, who presented his takeover in terms of a
Corrective Revolution.

Sadat switched Egypt's Cold War allegiance from the Soviet Union to the
United States, expelling Soviet advisors in 1972, and launched the
Infitah economic reform policy, while violently clamping down on
religious and secular opposition alike. In 1973, Egypt, along with Syria
launched a surprise attack on Israel in an attempt to regain the
occupied Sinai Penninsula. Both the US and the USSR intervened and a
cease-fire was reached between both sides. Despite not being a complete
military success, most historians agree that the Yom Kippur war
presented Sadat with a political victory that would later allow him to
pursue peace with Israel. In 1977, Sadat made a historical visit to
Israel which led to the 1978 peace treaty in exchange for the complete
Israeli withdrawal from Sinai. Sadat's initiative sparked enormous
controversy in the Arab world and led to Egypt's expulsion from the Arab
League, but was supported by the vast majority of Egyptians.[8] Sadat
was assassinated in Cairo by a fundamentalist military soldier in 1981
and was succeeded by the incumbent Hosni Mubarak. In 2003, the Egyptian
Movement for Change, popularly known as Kefaya, was launched to seek a
return to democracy and greater civil liberties.

Politics

National

Egypt has been a republic since 18 June 1953. President Mohamed Hosni
Mubarak has been the President of the Republic since October 14, 1981,
following the assassination of former-President Mohammed Anwar El-Sadat.
Mubarak is currently serving his fifth term in office. He is the leader
of the ruling National Democratic Party. Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed Nazif
was sworn in as Prime Minister on 9 July 2004, following the resignation
of Dr. Atef Ebeid from his office.

Although power is ostensibly organized under a multi-party
semi-presidential system, whereby the executive power is theoretically
divided between the President and the Prime Minister, in practice it
rests almost solely with the President who traditionally has been
elected in single-candidate elections for more than fifty years. Egypt
also holds regular multi-party parliamentary elections. The last
presidential election, in which Mubarak won a fifth consecutive term,
was held in September 2005 (see below).

In late-February 2005, President Mubarak announced in a surprise
television broadcast that he had ordered the reform of the country's
presidential election law, paving the way for multi-candidate polls in
the upcoming presidential election. For the first time since the 1952
movement, the Egyptian people had an apparent chance to elect a leader
from a list of various candidates. The President said his initiative
came "out of my full conviction of the need to consolidate efforts for
more freedom and democracy."[9] However, the new law placed draconian
restrictions on the filing for presidential candidacies, designed to
prevent well-known candidates such as Ayman Nour from standing against
Mubarak, and paved the road for his easy re-election victory.

Concerns were once again expressed after the 2005 elections about
government interference in the election process through fraud and
vote-rigging. In addition, violence by pro-Mubarak supporters against
opposition demonstrators and police brutality were evident during the
elections. This poses major questions about the government's purported
commitment to democracy.

As a result, most Egyptians are skeptical about the process of
democratisation and the role of the elections. A very small proportion
of those eligible to vote actually turned out for the 2005 elections.
Newspapers, however, have exhibited an increasing degree of freedom in
criticizing the president, and the results of the recent parliamentary
elections, which saw Islamist parties such as the banned Muslim
Brotherhood winning many seats, genuinely indicate that a change of some
sorts is underway.

International
The permanent headquarters for the League of Arab States (The Arab
League) is located in Cairo. The Secretary General of the League has
traditionally been an Egyptian. Former Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr
Moussa is the present Secretary General of the Arab League. The Arab
League briefly moved out of Egypt to Tunis in 1978 as a protest at the
peace treaty with Israel, but returned in 1989.

Egypt was the first Arab state to establish diplomatic relations with
the state of Israel, after the signing of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty
at the Camp David Accords. Egypt has a major influence amongst other
Arab states, and has historically played an important role as a mediator
in resolving disputes between various Arab nations, and in the
Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Most Arab nations still give credence to
Egypt playing that role, though its effects are often limited.

Former Egyptian Deputy Prime Minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali served as
Secretary General of the United Nations from 1991 to 1996.

A territorial dispute with Sudan over an area known as the Hala'ib
Triangle, has meant that diplomatic relations between the two remain
strained.

Human Rights

Several local and international human rights organizations, including
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have reported on Egypt's
poor human rights record for many years. In 2005, the government of
Egypt faced unprecedented public criticism as Egyptian democracy
activists challenged President Hosni Mubarak's quarter century of
authoritarian rule. Some of the numerous and most serious violations
include routine torture; arbitrary detentions and trials before military
and state security courts; discriminatory personal status laws governing
marriage, divorce, custody and inheritance with respect to women; and
discriminatory laws against religious minorities–particularly Christians
and Bahá'ís–which place severe restriction on church building and
renovation among other violations.

Approximately fifteen thousand people remain in prolonged detention
without charge under the Emergency Law, according to the Cairo-based
Human Rights Association for Assistance to Prisoners.[11] The Egyptian
government last renewed the Emergency Law (Law No. 162 of 1958) in May
2006 for another term.

The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) is one of the
longest-standing bodies for the defense of human rights in Egypt.

Military

Egyptian F-16s flying in close formation next to the Pyramids
The Egyptian military is one of the largest and strongest military power
on the African continent and the Middle East. The Egyptian Armed forces
have also had more battle-field experience than most armies in the
region, with a combined troop strength of around 450,000 active
personnel.

Conscription is compulsory for Egyptian men of 18 years of age who are
not the only male child. Full-time students may defer their service
until the age of 28. The length of the service depends on the level and
kind of education achieved by the conscript and needs of the army at the
time of conscription.

Egypt continues to contribute regularly to United Nations peacekeeping
missions, most recently in East Timor, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.

Governorates of Egypt

Egypt is divided into 26 governorates (Muhafazat; singular – Muhafazah)
and the city of Luxor, which is classified as a city rather than a
governorate. There will soon be 27 governorates, as the city of Luxor is
becoming a governorate.

Economy

Lions guard the Kasr-el-Nil Bridge which traverses the Nile at Tahrir
Square. The construction of the bridge served as a catalyst for the
development of the affluent commercial district Zamalek (Gezira Island)
Egypt's economy depends mainly on agriculture, media, petroleum exports,
and tourism; there are also more than 5 million Egyptians working
abroad, mainly in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf area like UAE, and Europe. The
United States as well has a large population of Egyptian immigrants.

The completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1971 and the resultant Lake
Nasser have altered the time-honored place of the Nile River in the
agriculture and ecology of Egypt. A rapidly-growing population (the
largest in the Arab world), limited arable land, and dependence on the
Nile all continue to overtax resources and stress the economy.

The government has struggled to prepare the economy for the new
millennium through economic reform and massive investments in
communications and physical infrastructure. Egypt has been receiving
U.S. foreign aid (since 1979, an average of $2.2 billion per year) and
is the third-largest recipient of such funds from the United States
following the Iraq war. Its main revenues however come from tourism as
well as traffic that goes through the Suez Canal.

Economic conditions are starting to improve considerably after a period
of stagnation from the adoption of more liberal economic policies by the
government, as well as increased revenues from tourism and a booming
stock market. In its annual report, the IMF has rated Egypt as one of
the top countries in the world undertaking economic reforms.

Demographics

Egypt is the most populous country in the Middle East and the
second-most populous on the African continent, with nearly 79 million
people. Almost all the population is concentrated along the banks of the
Nile (notably Alexandria and Cairo), in the Delta and near the Suez
Canal. Approximately 90% of the population adheres to Islam and most of
the remainder to Christianity (primarily the Coptic Orthodox
denomination). Apart from religious affiliation, Egyptians can be
divided demographically into those who live in the major urban centers
and the fellahin or farmers of rural villages.

Egyptians are by the far the largest ethnic group in Egypt at 97-98%
(about 76.4 million) of the total population.[13] Ethnic minorities
include the Bedouin Arab tribes living in the eastern deserts and the
Sinai Peninsula, the Berber-speaking Siwis of the Siwa Oasis, and the
ancient Nubian communities clustered along the Nile in the southernmost
part of Egypt. Egypt also hosts some 90,000 refugees and asylum seekers,
made up mostly of 70,000 Palestinian refugees and 20,000 Sudanese
refugees. The once-vibrant Jewish community in Egypt has virtually
disappeared, with only a small number remaining in Egypt and those who
visit on religious occasions. Several important Jewish archaeological
and historical sites remain.

Religion

Religion plays a central role in most Egyptians' lives as visitors to
the country quickly discover. The rolling calls to prayer that are heard
five times a day have the informal effect of regulating the pace of
everything from business to entertainment. Cairo is famous for its
numerous mosque minarets and church towers.

Egypt is predominantly Muslim, at approximately 90% of the population,
with the majority being adherents of the Sunni branch of Islam. A
significant number of Muslim Egyptians follow native Sufi orders.
Christians represent about 10% of the population, with the largest being
the Coptic denomination (primarily Coptic Orthodox, but also Coptic
Catholic and Coptic Protestant) at 9%, while the remaining 1% include
Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, and Armenian Orthodox,
largely found in Alexandria and Cairo.

According to the constitution, any new legislation must implicitly agree
with Islamic laws. The mainstream Hanafi school of Sunni Islam is
largely organised by the state, through Wizaret Al-Awkaf (Ministry of
Religious Affairs). Al-Awkaf controls all mosques and overviews Muslim
clerics. Imams are trained in Imam vocational schools and at Al-Azhar
University. The department supports Sunni Islam and has commissions
authorised to give Fatwa judgements on Islamic issues.

Over seven million Egyptians follow the Christian faith as members of
the Coptic Church.
Egypt hosts two major religious institutions. Al-Azhar University is the
oldest Islamic institution of higher studies (founded around 970 A.D)
and considered by many to be the oldest extant university. Egypt also
has a strong Christian heritage as evidenced by the existence of the
Coptic Orthodox Church headed by the Patriarch of Alexandria, which has
a following of approximately 50 million Christians worldwide, most
importantly in Ethiopia and Eritrea (one of the famous Coptic Orthodox
Churches is Saint Takla Haimanot Church in Alexandria).[15]

Religious freedom for Egypt's Coptic Christian community is hampered to
varying degrees by terrorism from extremist Islamist groups and by
discriminatory and restrictive government policies. The Egyptian
government enforces the Ottoman-period Hamayouni law, which places
restrictions on building or repairing churches, restrictions that do not
apply to mosques. Christians, unlike Muslims, are required to obtain
presidential permission in order to construct new churches or renovate
existing ones, "even for something as small as repairing a toilet or a
broken window".[16] Copts have faced increased marginalization after the
1952 coup d'état. They are minimally represented in law enforcement,
state security, public office and diplomacy, and are routinely
discriminated against in the workforce and denied jobs on the basis of
their religion. In addition, the Coptic community has been the target of
hate crimes and physical assault, most recently during attacks on three
churches in Alexandria.[17]

Egypt was once home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the
world. Jews partook of all aspects of Egypt's social and political life;
one of the most ardent Egyptian nationalists, Yaqub Sanu' (Abu Naddara),
was a Jew, as was popular singer Leila Mourad. After the 1956 Suez
Crisis, some 25,000 Egyptian Jews were expelled by Gamal Abdel Nasser,
their Egyptian citizenship was revoked and their property was
confiscated. A steady stream of migration of Egyptian Jews followed,
reaching a peak after the Six-Day War with Israel in 1967. Today, Jews
in Egypt number less than 200.[18]

Bahá'ís in Egypt, whose population ranges between several hundred and a
few thousand, have their institutions and community activities banned.
Since their faith is not officially recognized by the state, they are
also not allowed to use it on their national identity cards (conversely,
Islam, Christianity, & Judaism are officially recognized); hence most of
them do not hold national identity cards. In April 2006 a court case
recognized the Bahá'í Faith, but the government appealed the court
decision and succeeded in having it suspended on 15 May.[19]

There are Egyptians who identify as atheist and agnostic, but their
numbers are largely unknown as openly advocating such positions risks
legal sanction. In 2000, an openly atheist Egyptian writer, who called
for the establishment of a local association for atheists, was tried on
charges of insulting Islam and its prophet in four of his books.[20]

Geography

At 386,636 mi² (1,001,450 km²[1]), Egypt is the world's 30th-largest
country (after Mauritania). It is comparable in size to Tanzania, and is
more than half the size of the US state of Alaska.

Egypt is bordered by Libya on the west, Sudan on the south, and on
Israel and Gaza Strip on the northeast. Egypt's important role in
geopolitics stems from its strategic position: a transcontinental
nation, it possesses a land bridge (the Isthmus of Suez) between Africa
and Asia, which in turn is traversed by a navigable waterway (the Suez
Canal) that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean via the
Red Sea.

Apart from the Nile Valley, the majority of Egypt's landscape is a big,
sandy desert. The winds blowing can create sand dunes over 100 feet
high. Egypt includes parts of the Sahara Desert and of the Libyan
Desert. These deserts were referred to as the "red land" in ancient
Egypt, and they protected the Kingdom of the Pharaohs from western
threats.

Protectorates include Ras Mohamed National Park, Zaranik Protectorate
and Siwa.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina is a commemoration of the ancient Library of
Alexandria in Egypt's second largest city.
Egyptian culture has five thousand years of recorded history. Ancient
Egypt was among the earliest civilizations and for millennia, Egypt
maintained a strikingly complex and stable culture that influenced later
cultures of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. After the Pharaonic era,
Egypt itself came under the influence of Hellenism, Christianity, and
Islamic culture. Today, many aspects of Egypt's ancient culture exist in
interaction with newer elements, including the influence of modern
Western culture, itself with roots in ancient Egypt.

Egypt's capital city, Cairo, is Africa's largest city and has been
renowned for centuries as a center of learning, culture and commerce.
Egypt has the highest number of Nobel Laureates in Africa and the Arab
World. Some Egyptian born politicians were or are currently at the helm
of major international organizations like Boutros Boutros-Ghali of the
United Nations and Mohamed ElBaradei of the IAEA.

Renaissance
In the mid-19th century Rifa'a et-Tahtawi started the Egyptian
Renaissance, which renewed interest in Egyptian antiquity and exposed
Egypt to Enlightenment principals. Tahtawi co-founded with education
reformer Ali Mubarak a native Egyptology school that looked for
inspiration to medieval Egyptian scholars, such as Suyuti and Maqrizi,
who themselves studied the history, language and antiquities of
Egypt.[21] Egypt's renaissance reached a peak through the work of people
like Muhammad Abduh, Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed, Qasim Amin, Salama Moussa and
Taha Hussein. They forged a liberal path for Egypt expressed as a
commitment to individual freedom, secularism and faith in science to
bring progress.[22]

Arts
The Egyptians were one of the first major civilizations to codify design
elements in art. The wall paintings done in the service of the Pharaohs
followed a rigid code of visual rules and meanings. Modern and
contemporary Egyptian art can be as diverse as any works in the world
art scene. The Cairo Opera House serves as the main performing arts
venue in the Egyptian capital. Egypt's media and arts industry has
flourished since the late 19th century, today with more than 30
satellite channels and over 100 motion pictures produced each year.
Cairo in fact has long been known as the "Hollywood of the Middle East."
To bolster its media industry further, especially with the keen
competition from the Persian Gulf Arab States and Lebanon, a large media
city was built. Some Egyptian actors, like Omar Sharif, have achieved
world-wide fame.

Literature
Literature constitutes an important cultural element in the life of
Egypt. Egyptian novelists and poets were among the first to experiment
with modern styles of Arabic literature, and the forms they developed
have been widely imitated throughout the Middle East. The first modern
Egyptian novel Zaynab by Muhammad Husayn Haykal was published in 1913 in
the Egyptian vernacular. Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz was the first
Arabic-language writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Female
Egyptian writers include Nawal El Saadawi, well known for her feminist
activism, and Alifa Rifaat who also writes about women and tradition.
Vernacular poetry is perhaps the most popular literary genre amongst
Egyptians, represented by such luminaries as Ahmed Fuad Nigm (Fagumi),
Salah Jaheen and Abdel Rahman el-Abnudi.

Festivals
Egypt is famous for its many festivals and religious carnivals, also
known as mulids. They are usually associated with a particular Coptic or
Sufi saint, but are often celebrated by all Egyptians irrespective of
creed or religion. Ramadan has a special flavor in Egypt, celebrated
with sounds, lights (local lanterns known as fawanees) and much flare
that many Muslim tourists from the region flock to Egypt during Ramadan
to witness the spectacle. The ancient spring festival of Sham en Nisim
(Copto-Egyptian: ???‘?????? shom en nisim) has been celebrated by
Egyptians for thousands of years, typically between the Egyptian months
of Baramouda (April) and Bashans (May) following Easter Sunday.[23]